Cross Country Clinic & Bartley O’Sullivan Lecture
Portersize Just a Jiff
On Saturday afternoon Olympian Camilla Speirs gave a Cross Country Clinic in the Clifden Showgrounds. A course of 5 cross-country type fences were erected and 4 Connemara ponies varying in age and experience were used to demonstrate the Instructor’s teaching. In the 2012 London Olympics. Camilla Speirs rode her Half- bred Connemara Event Horse, Portersize Just a Jiff by Crosskeys Rebel.
Crosskeys Rebel
This dun Connemara is by Island Lad whose pedigree contains the name of Carna Dun a few times, also Clonkeehan Auratum, and he goes back through pure native lines to Rebel and CannonBall. So Crosskeys Rebel carries a combination of Native, Thoroughbred and Arab blood, like so many of today’s Connemara Ponies. As you will see he is of the rugged type and apparently this sort of Connemara crossed with a Thoroughbred mare can achieve a good result.
Spring Snow on Maolrea
This special type of clinic was a first for Clifden and was a very popular event for all those attending. The wind was cold that afternoon, as it was throughout the entire weekend when “that bitter black wind that blows from the left hand” to quote W.B Yeats, made the show-grounds feel like a Siberian winter outpost.
Bartley O’Sullivan Lecture
This was the fifth year of this Lecture which commemorates the late Bartley O’Sullivan, who was a founder member of the CPBS in 1923.
